


Servitude

by Jld71, ShadyB



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: BDSM, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 22:37:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13961538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jld71/pseuds/Jld71, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadyB/pseuds/ShadyB
Summary: The search for Eames leads Arthur into a nightmare underworld of masters, slaves, and dark magic.





	Servitude

**Servitude**

Part 1: In Dreams Begins Responsibility

Eames was the last person Arthur wanted to be dreaming of. Things had not ended well between them. 

Leading up to the Inception, and in the weeks that followed, Eames circled him like a great cat on the prowl-- A leopard or a lion drawing ever closer to its prey. Arthur worked hard to remain calm, rational and detached under all circumstances but Eames’ unrelenting attention gradually wore him down.  It got harder and harder for him to focus on his work.

 During an important briefing for their latest project, he completely missed everything Dom had to say—over half an hour of strategy—because he was transfixed by Eames’ face.  He seemed to be communicating something filthy and just for Arthur through subtle movements of his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth.  And those lake water blue eyes, they seemed to always be on Arthur.  Undressing him, but going further than his clothes; stripping away his pretentions, his professionalism, his cool.  Leaving him no armor, no mask, no protection.  It was unnerving, it made him stupid and unprofessional and over stimulated all at once.  He found himself perpetually wired with anxiety and anticipation. 

Every time he saw Eames (and it was almost every day) he had to fight to keep it together, or at the very least not make a fool of himself. He hated it.  It was driving him crazy.  He felt driven to do something, anything, to break the tension between them.  Preferably something that involved him and Eames rolling around on the floor. 

After a particularly nerve wracking meeting with a client—during which Eames’ knowing looks and well placed smiles, not to mention his stocking foot inching up Arthur’s ankle and calf at the worst possible time-- he’d been reduced to a stammering, blushing idiot. Angry and embarrassed, he’d intentionally avoided Eames for more than a week after that incident.  Until one morning when he showed up at their warehouse headquarters and found—surprise surprise—that Eames was already there.

It was highly unexpected. Eames was largely nocturnal and rarely appeared before mid-afternoon but there he was, sitting in the morning sunshine that streamed through the window,  reading some kind of a document that looked like it might be written in Japanese.  He was wearing glasses, which Arthur had never seen him in before and he looked like he hadn’t shaved in several days.  The rumpled white shirt he was wearing unbuttoned so far the whirl of tattoos on his chest was visible.  As he read he fingered a red poker chip, his brow furrowed.  

He was so absorbed in whatever he was reading, concentrating so hard that even when Arthur came right up to him and was standing beside him he didn’t look up, didn’t seem to notice. Only when Arthur put a hand on his shoulder did he turn to look at him, taking off the glasses as he did.  He seemed momentarily confused; it may have had to do with the half empty glass of whiskey on the table beside him. 

So close, standing over him, Arthur felt his allure stronger than ever. This time he didn’t even try to fight it.  He moved his hand to Eames’ chin, tilted his face upwards and bending down pressed his lips to Eames’.  They were as warm and lush as he’d imaged and they parted so easily to let him in.  He tasted a sharp tang of whiskey then lost himself in the twining of tongue around tongue—Eames was returning his kisses with an intensity that made his legs buckle. He straddled Eames’ lap, all but climbing on top of him, cradling his head with one hand as the other roved through the opening of his shirt, caressing his chest, worrying the cold metal rings that hung from his nipples.  He wanted this man, wanted him even more than he wanted to be rational, professional, in control.  It seemed as if the feeling was mutual.  

The blare of music seemed to physically rip between them. The ringtone of Eames’ cell phone, but for an instant Arthur thought it was a song meant to call them back from a dream.  

_Turn off your mind relax and float down stream_

_It is not dying, it is not dying_

_Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void,_

_It is shining, it is shining._

Eames jumped to his feet, carrying Arthur with him. Whatever state of mind he’d been in, the ringtone had snapped him back to reality.  He literally pried Arthur off him, his hands, his arms, his mouth, pried him off and pushed him back away holding him at arm’s length.  

“No,” he said. “We can’t.  I can’t do this.”  His voice was firm but completely flat, without affect.   

“Why?” Arthur stammered.  “Why not?  What are you talking about?”  The lightning fast change of mood had left him baffled.  He was shaking, shocked. 

“I’m not free to be with you.”

“You’re… not free?” Bewilderment slipped into humiliation followed by anger.  “You fucking bastard.  You’ve been flirting with me for months.  You’ve been coming onto me; practically stalking me and now you’re not free to be with me?  What does that even mean?  Has this been a game to you, fucking with me?  A way to amuse yourself?  Taunting me and goading me and when you finally get a reaction you’re too good for me?”

“You’re wrong, trust me. I can’t explain, I’m not at liberty...”

“You don’t need to explain, you just showed me. Showed me up, made a total fool of me.  Is that what you wanted?  Are you happy now, you asshole?  Get out of here, get away from me.  I don’t want to ever see you again, ever.”

And he hadn’t.

 Much to Dom’s chagrin he dropped out of the project they’d been working on without notice. He simply vanished, disappeared the same day he’d had the falling out with Arthur.

After his initial anger and embarrassment faded, Arthur realized that Eames must have been planning on leaving that day and that something had been wrong. That he was drinking so early in the day, the furrowed brow, the apologetic tone with which he’d met Arthur’s accusations… and the poker chip.  It was his totem, he’d been consulting it, touching that way to try and figure out if he was in reality or a dream.  He hadn’t been sure which. 

Well, there was nothing that could be done now. Eames was gone and Arthur exercised his considerable mental discipline not thinking about Eames or the awkward misunderstanding that was their last encounter.  At least he did until the dreams started. 

Eames had been gone for eight months when the dreams began. Nothing in Arthur’s life triggered them, no sudden reminder of Eames existence, no casual mention of him.  They just started coming, night after night, always the same.  Arthur would find himself in a red lit room walled with paper screens.  Eames would be sitting in the center of a round red rug on the polished wood floor, completely naked except for a black cloth tied around his eyes and a series of black ribbon-like bounds around his arms, legs, torso and throat. His body was covered with elaborate tattoos of dragons which Arthur recognized as the type favored by Yakuza, Japanese gangsters.

He’d known Eames had tattoos of some kind, but he’d never seen enough of his body to get a sense of what they were or how extensive they were. He had no way of knowing if Eames really had tattoos of this kind or if it was his own imagination (which he’d always considered sorely lacking) creating them. 

Sometimes he spoke. “Arthur, are you there?  Answer me, please Arthur…”

Arthur ignored the dreams for several days. He was angry, mostly with himself for failing to completely forget Eames.  Finally though, curiosity got the better of him.

“What do you want, Eames?” He finally asked.

“Arthur, is that you? I can’t see…”  Eames replied.  He sounded weak and very far away.

“Yes it’s me. You shouldn’t be here, Eames.”

“I don’t have anywhere else to turn.”

“ _You_ turned me down, remember? _You_ didn’t want me.”

Eames sighed. “Get over yourself, darling.  It wasn’t about you.  I told you, I wasn’t free.  Do I look free?”

“No. You’re tied up, blindfolded, like you’re a prisoner.  Why would I see you like that?  Maybe it means I want to punish you.”

“I’m sure you do, but you see me this way because this is my reality. This is the way I am.  I’m a slave now Arthur.  I’ve been enslaved.  I live according to the whims of a cruel and harsh mistress...”

“You’re nothing but a dream, a persistent and annoying phantom from my subconscious...”

“No I’m not. I’m in your dream but not a dream myself.”

“You can’t be in my dream. You’d need a Pasiv device; you’d need to be in proximity to me…”

“Dreaming is an art, not a science. I’ve told you that many times and you’ve persisted in dismissing me.  While I was in your dream during the Inception I took the liberty of leaving a back door unlocked in case I ever needed to come back.”

“No,” Arthur said curtly. “That can’t be done. It’s not possible.” 

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt in your philosophy. I am loath to endanger you but I’m desperate.  She’s using me up, I can’t last much longer. ”

“Who is she?”

“The English Queen, the Dame. I can’t tell you her name or where I am.”

“Why not?”

“Look at me, darling. I’m bound.  By vows, by magic.  There are limits to what I can tell you.”

“I don’t believe in magic.”

“Of course you don’t.  Be careful though, magic believes in you.”

A series of vertical cuts appeared on Eames’ body, blood flowing freely from them. They seemed to drain him away, made him paler and paler till he became transparent and then disappeared entirely.

In the waking world, Arthur began making efforts to locate him. It was largely futile.  None of Eames’ usual friends and or contact points seemed to have any idea where he was.  Some of them had in fact already contacted Dom looking for him. 

There were other ways to find someone however, methods that Arthur actually preferred because they were less hands on, more impersonal. He was good with computers, good at using them to access information he wasn’t supposed to see.  He went looking for Eames on lists of plane reservations and hotel registers.  Taking his cue from the document Eames had been reading the morning he’d last seen him and his tattoos in the dream (as well as the setting) he focused his search on Japan. 

After several days of scrolling through documents on his laptop he finally found what he was looking for. A man holding a British passport bearing the name Clifford Irving had entered Japan the day after he and Eames’ not so fond farewell. 

Arthur would have no idea who Clifford Irving was except that two years before (after a particularly profitable job) Eames had spent a long, slightly tipsy evening in Monte Carlo telling him all about his favorite movie, Orson Welles _F Is For Fake_.  The film was about the infamous art forger Elmyr de Hory.  It included footage of de Hory’s biographer, one Clifford Irving who would later cause a sensational scandal himself when it was discovered that he had forged Howard Hughes journals.  Eames loved that kind of thing, layers of irony, pranks and cons, puzzles within puzzles.  Arthur pulled up surveillance footage from the airport.  It was indeed Eames who had disembarked from the plane. 

Now that he had a name, Arthur turned his attention to credit card records. Out of several hundred Clifford Irving’s, he narrowed it down to the one in Japan, in Tokyo (where the plane had landed) on that particular day.  He found charges for a hotel room that night and an Uber car the next evening.  Also the next evening a substantial admission charge was paid to a nightclub by the name of Servitude.  After that, there was nothing.  No charges on the credit card, no payments.  A complete disappearance. 

Servitude itself was something of a mystery as well. There were no advertisements for the place, no mention of it in city directories, no tax or payroll records, no licenses.  For all legal purposes, the address the Uber car had visited was a vacant lot.  Servitude existed only as a third party credit card account that brought in thousands of dollars a day.   Puzzles within puzzles.

Arthur booked a flight to Tokyo.

 

Part 2: Things Not Dreamt

When he arrived the first thing he did was track down the Uber car Eames had taken to the nightclub so many months before. No luck.  The driver didn’t remember Eames and had never driven anyone else to that address.

The next step was a visit to the club itself.

The fee to enter Servitude was high, the equivalent of 500 American dollars, but Arthur paid without complaint. It was a relief that all you needed to enter the place was money.  Often times the most elite protected their secret gathering places through a network of connections that sometimes stretched back for centuries. Arthur had worried that some kind of a membership or a password or the name of a sponsor would be required.  Apparently Servitude wasn’t that kind of place—it seemed to be open to anyone willing to pay the price.

He was searched as he entered, asked to check his shoes and the two pistols he was carrying. He did manage to hold onto a knife he had strapped to his ankle.  Inside, walking in stocking feet, he passed through a dim, windowless hallway and through a door onto the main floor of the club.  It was a large room, lit from above with a latticework of fairy lights and globe lamps that were hung from the ceiling.   Around a small stage ringed with tables a full orchestra played.  The walls were disguised with heavy curtains of rich golden satin.  An art deco bar of marble and gold took up a long wall.  It was like stepping into another era, entering the Tropicana or the Copacabana of the 1950’s.  It looked like the kind of place where Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald might have performed.  It reminded him of the ballroom of his father’s hotel in Los Angeles where he’d grown up watching the very rich from behind the scenes. 

Servitude was crowded that night, there was scarcely an empty table in sight, and the large crowd was diverse in every way. It seemed to contain a roughly equal amount of men and women but in age the patrons ranged from elderly people with silver white hair to boys and girls who couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen despite the bottles of wine, champagne and sake on their tables.  There were many Japanese present but nearly as many Anglos-- Europeans or Americans—and a fair number or black and brown faces, people who might be from India, the middle east, South America, Africa or who’s heritage was of those areas.  Outfits ranged from formal wear to retro vintage, punk ensembles and bondage gear.  The first clear common denominator he noticed was that the crowd was almost entirely couples except for a few small groups.  As far as he could tell he was the only person there alone.  Most of the couples were men and women but men with men and women with women were by no means rare.

Based on the name, Arthur had come in with a good idea of what the place was about and the presence of a great many collars and the occasional leash or visible riding crop quickly verified his suspicions. Servitude catered to masters and their slaves.  He honestly didn’t know Eames well enough to know where he might fit within this scene.  Was this a world he moved in comfortably or had he somehow found himself thrown into it?  Was he likely to be master or slave?

Arthur shivered. The whole dynamic of the place chilled him, the idea of people being property of others.  It struck too close to home.  While he had never been a slave, Arthur had been an apprentice between the ages of 17 and 22.  For 5 years he had been indentured to his teacher, Hal Loftus.  It had been the only way open to him to learn to move in dreams.  Loftus had taught him his trade, made him what he was-- the best—but there had been a price.  Being an apprentice had meant that for 5 years he ran Loftus’ errands and risked his life on jobs he didn’t even get paid for.  That he obeyed orders without question, and that he made himself sexually available to his mentor.  Arthur had known this when he signed on, he’d thought he could handle it, that it was worth it to get the education he wanted.  Sex, he had told himself when he signed the contract as an untouched 17 year old, was just another service to be provided. 

It certainly was that way to Loftus. The man was a genius who lived in his mind.  He regarded sex as nothing more than a basic bodily function.  A few times a month he called upon his apprentice to get him off, either on his knees or bent over a desk, occasionally in bed.  It was always brief and businesslike; no pretense was made of affection or romantic feeling. 

Arthur had imagined he would prefer sex this way, simple and uncomplicated by emotion. Instead he found it left him profoundly empty, hollowed out more and more by each encounter.  At the end of five years he could barely look another person in the face.  He felt dirty, as though he had nothing left inside of him good enough to offer to another.  It had been seven years since he had completed his apprenticeship.  During that time he hadn’t dated or taken lovers.  Except for a terrible thing that had happened between him and Dom Cobb’s wife, Mal, a few days before her death he’d had no other sexual experiences. 

Eames had, for a while anyways, given him a hope that he might connect with someone else on that level, that he might be acceptable to someone. Maybe that was why he was willing to go to so much effort to find Eames even after the crushing rejection.

But he wouldn’t allow himself to think about that. There was a job to be done. 

He shifted his attention to the nightclub’s staff. They were the ones he needed to speak to, they were the ones who would know things.  It was immediately evident that they were good; fast moving, attentive, polite; a well-oiled-machine. His father had manage over 200 people at his hotel—laundry, cleaning, kitchen, serving, lobby—he had always said that the best service was omnipotent.  That a guests needs ought to be filled before they were even realized as if by invisible hands.  Though Servitudes staff was uniformly high quality, there were certain members of it who moved with an ease that belied experience, familiarity.  These were the ones who might have been there months before when Eames had first come there. 

He spoke to a male server first, but had no luck. He didn’t recognize Eames’ photo.  Neither did a young woman bussing tables, but she recommended he speak to her friend Olivia, a bartender who generally had her finger on the pulse of things. 

Olivia was a beauty; pale skinned with wild, dark hair and a slender but curvy build. She wore tailored black pants and sleeveless white button-up blouse; her bare arms seemed both tender and strong.  Her kohl lined eyes were large, active, and extremely intelligent-- wide open taking everything in.  She might have been any age between twenty and forty, it was impossible to tell.  One moment she seemed young, the next very worldly.  Her accent revealed she was an American. 

“Yeah,” she said glancing at the photo of Eames. “I remember him.  James Bond—an Englishman and quite the charmer.  Unless you’re family, you’d do best to forget about him.”

“Why?” Arthur asked.  “Where is he?”

“If he’s even still alive-- and that’s a big if-- he’s way over his head in dark water and likely to drag down anyone who gets close if you catch my drift.”

“I can handle myself in dark water. Tell me what you know.”

“What are you drinking?”

“Pinot noir,” He said. She poured a glass, set it in front of him.

“On the house, now go away,” she said.

He pushed a folded bill over towards her.

“I’d prefer to stay. I enjoy your company.”

She studied the money for a long moment, and then finally pocketed it. “The club discourages staff from discussing a patron’s business,” she said. “That’s what your friend is now; a patron’s business.  It would endanger my job if I told you any more, however if you were to take a table and someone happened to join you, someone who could tell you more, that would be entirely out of my hands.” 

“Indeed it would be.” He picked up his glass, moved towards a table that had emptied on the other side of the room.

“Good luck,” she said. “Watch out for shadows.”

“Shadows?”

“That’s what lurks in dark water,” she said. “That’s what’ll eat you alive.”

He waited at the table for quite some time, carefully sipping his wine, aware that his unattached status was attracting attention. A number of the clubs other patrons seemed to be watching him, most intently of all a tall, slender man of about his age with handsome Eurasian features and close cropped dark hair.  This man wore motorcycle leathers from the 1950’s and he was surrounded by a group of women.  All of them wore short, lacy white dresses over white tights and mary jane shoes.  They were made up similarly as well so their faces resembled each other.  The main difference was the color of their hair; each wore a wig of a different pastel shade that clung sleek to their head before exploding in cascading curls.  Lavender, sea green, baby blue, pink and butter yellow.  Each girl was further individualized with petticoats and ribbons in the color of her wig.  Other than that they seemed so interchangeable that Arthur almost expected them to step together and become a single girls with rainbow stripped petticoats and hair. 

“Hey, lonely little American boy why don’t you come dance with us,” a woman’s voice clanged breaking his thoughts. The owner of the bold and brassy voice was a diminutive young woman in an eloquently tailored tuxedo.  Her hair was bright red, cut in an inverted bob.  Her eyes lined with black, her lips crimson.  She had perhaps the wickedest expression he’d ever seen on her face, a disconcerting blend of childlike mischief and primeval blood lust.  Another woman stood slightly behind her, towering over her by at least a two heads, a light skinned black woman with a serene face.  She wore a short, tight crocheted lilac sheath dress that displayed her voluptuous curves.  Around her neck there was a double strand of pearls.  Her thick, dark hair was piled up on her head, decorated on either side by huge, waxy petaled gardenias such as Billie Holiday or Etta James might have worn.

Arthur stood and extended his hand. The redheaded women in the tuxedo clasped it and lead both him and her female partner to the dance floor.  She faced him, and he placed a hand on her shoulder, the other on her waist.  The taller woman pressed against his back, hands on his hips, mirroring his movements.  On the stage, a lovely young Japanese woman in a vintage dress stood, crooning pop songs in slightly off kilter English to the orchestra’s music. 

_Do up the buttons of your overcoat,_

_When the wind is blowing free,_

_Take good care of yourself, my baby,_

_You are owned by me._

A familiar old song, but Arthur found the words slightly chilling in the context of the club.

“I am Lise,” the redheaded woman said. “My mistress’ name is Iris. We were told you were interested in the Dame’s affairs.”  The Dame, those were the words Eames had used in his dream.

“I don’t know who the Dame is, but if her affairs involve an Englishman named Eames, I am very interested. “ Lise smiled.  Her teeth seemed especially sharp and white.

“The woman we called the Dame or the English Queen, is Helen Astor, the leader of a successful ninkyō dantai here in Tokyo. “

“She’s Yakuza, organized crime?”

“Indeed, the Dame dabbles in the usual, drugs, casinos, whores, enforcement. It’s her family business—the Astor’s have been a part of the Tokyo underworld for six generations though you’d never know she was born and bred here.  Her people only breed with other Anglos.  They believe it keeps their bloodline pure.  Helen doesn’t need to worry about that anymore though, she’s over sixty by now, well past the age to have children.”

“What does she have to do with Eames?”

“Months ago, your friend, this Eames, was bound in servitude to Helen Astor. He is her slave.”

“How?”

“Months ago, he came here and of his own free will entered into a two year contract with her. There were circumstances which I do not know.  There was a woman who came with him, a smuggler with a price on her head.  She went free after your friend contracted with Helen.  I assume he took her place.  A noble gesture, but terribly misguided.  Helen is far more than what she seems.  She is a most harsh mistress.” 

“How so?” Arthur asked.

“Iris’ friends are here,” Lise said abruptly. “We must greet them.  Go back to your table.  We will return.”

Arthur glanced back at the deserted table where his wine glass sat. He noted that one of the white clad girls, the one with a wig the color of pistachio ice cream, lingered beside it.  When she saw him looking at her she purposefully walked back to the man in motorcycle leathers.  He reclaimed the table, once again sipping his wine as he waited for the women to return.  He wondered about Iris, if Lise truly communicated her thoughts or if the mistress had somehow become pawn of the slave.  Mainly he wondered who Helen Astor was and what she might be doing to Eames.  The blindfold and the cuts.  “A _harsh mistress”_ he had called her, just as Lise had. 

He looked up and Lise stood before him, both hands extended. Arthur rose and once again the three of them danced.

“You dance well,” she said. “Where did you learn?”

He preferred not to say. He’d learned at the hotel ballroom, purely through observation.

“Tell me more about Helen Astor,” he said instead.

“Dame Astor is a very dangerous woman to deal with,” Lise said. “In addition to her criminal organization, she is also a very powerful sorceress and a succubus—a practitioner of dark magics.”

“No,” he said. “There’s no such thing as a sorceress or succubus.  I don’t believe in magic.”

“You should. It’s a weapon like any other.  It can wound and it can kill.  It’ll kill you, if you don’t open your mind to the danger you face.  I know what Helen is capable of.  I was once what your friend is now--her slave.  I may be the only one who’s ever survived.”

“She murders her slaves?”

“She takes only one slave at a time. The contracts she makes are never more than two years but most of her slaves last little more than a year.  Once she has someone, she drains them.”

“How?”

“As a vampire does; she sucks away their strength and will, their heart and soul. She drains them and then they die.”

“And you stand by and let her? You people here, all you benevolent masters with your beloved property?”

“Don’t speak of things you are ignorant of, American. Many disapprove of Helen Astor’s actions but she has a great deal of power.  Consider, she rules two kinds of underworlds; one material, one spiritual.  How do you stop someone like that?  We do what we can, some of us.  We watch her; make it our business to know who she enslaves and what becomes of them.  We watch and wait and hope to catch her in a mistake.  Many of us would like to see her brought down.”

“Where does he stand in this equation?” Arthur asked gesturing to the man in the motorcycle leathers who had been observing him so closely all night.

“Adam Yamabe. Called Shadōpurinsu, the Shadow Prince.  Surrounded as always by his Lolitas. He is one of Dame Astor’s fiercest business rivals.”

“Should I be concerned that he’s been watching me since I got here?”

“An overly intense young man that one-- a prince who would be a king. But fear not, Mr. Yamabe has no love of the English Queen.”    

“You say you were in Dame Astor’s service and you escaped, survived. How did you do that?”

“Iris is like Helen, born with the ability to draw from others what makes them live, what makes them who they are. Once upon a time she was Helen’s protégé and I was Helen’s slave.  We fell in love and Iris took me from Dame Astor, but there was a cost.  Her powers were greatly diminished in winning me and her voice is gone.  She was a singer, she had a beautiful voice.  Helen took it, which is why Iris now speaks through me. She speaks in my mind and I say the words for her.”

Iris pulled aside her pearls so he could see the vivid pink scar on her throat.

“You see?” Lise said.  He nodded, but knew that he didn’t see at all.  It seemed like a fairy tale, like it couldn’t be real.  Nothing seemed real, not this room full of masters and slaves or these two women pressing ever closer against him.  He felt very drunk, although he hadn’t finished his single glass of wine. 

Lise draped her arms around his neck; Iris tightened her arms around his waist, her breath on his neck. “You’re overwhelmed.  No, more than that.  Bewitched and bewildered.”  As they turned, the lights left trails that seemed to wrap around them.  The women were all but holding him up, Lise’s breasts against his chest, Iris’ against his back.  Then someone came up to Lise, tapped her on the shoulder.  She gave a wicked smile.

“Someone else desires your company, American,” she said. “Good luck, may you free your friend.”  Then she and Iris were gone and he was dancing with two others, this time a boy and a girl.  They couldn’t have been more than 16 or 17 years old.  Each filled one of his arms and they held each other so they were dancing in a tight circle.  The girl was a tiny with a heart-shaped face dominated by huge violet eyes.  Her hair was ice blonde and flowed down her back.  She wore a vintage white cocktail dress, with a sequined bodice and tulle skirt.  The boy wore a dark tailored suit.  He was tall and well-built with light brown curls and a striking face—rangy, with wide, high placed cheekbone, green blue eyes lined with kohl, and lips that were (if possible) even more lush and full than Eames’.

Arthur knew he ought to be alarmed by their sudden intrusion, but he was too far gone.   Instead he let them hold him up, turning around and around.

The pounding music of the orchestra seemed to make the room swing from side to side. The singer’s voice hovered above it, clear as glass.

_You let me despoil you_

_You let me destroy you_

_You let me enter into you_

_You let me thwart you_

_Help me, my insides have broken_

_Help me; I have got no soul left to sell_

_Help me, the only thing that is right_

_Help me to get away from me_

_I long to make love to you like animals_

_I want to feel the inside of you_

_I long to make love to you like animals_

_My whole life has been wrong_

_You bring me closer to god_

Though he’d always avoided any kind of public display of affection Arthur started kissing the boy. He was so strong and beautiful he couldn’t help himself.  His lip’s yielded, his tongue filling Arthur’s mouth.  The girl’s hands were on him; she’d untucked his shirt and was reaching underneath it as her hands glided over the bare skin of his back and then his stomach, sliding upward to tease his nipples.  He moaned as the boy forced a leg between Arthur’s, rubbing against him.  The girl was laughing, a chiming lilt to her voice as they spun. 

Then it was over. Strong hands grasp his arms, dragged him away from the couple.  A line of girls in white dresses and multi-colored wigs came between them like a wall as the man in the motorcycle leathers, the one called the Shadow Prince, half led and half dragged him towards the exit. 

“You’ve been drugged,” he hissed in Arthur’s ear. “That bartender is Dame Astor’s creature.  I’m going to get you out of here while you’re still on your feet.”

Then they were outside on the street, out in the rain. A limousine pulled up and the Shadow Prince flung the door open, threw Arthur onto the seat.  One of the Shadow Prince’s Lolitas pulled her wig off, revealing her closely cropped black hair underneath and got on top of him, straddling him, her short dress hiked up showing her thighs. Was she shielding him?  Holding him down? 

“Be still,” she ordered, her small hands pressing his wrists against the slick leather of the seat. A halo of darkness closed around her face.   

When he woke he was sprawled on a futon, still dressed and wearing his shoes. His head was pounding so hard he could scarcely see and he was so nauseous he didn’t dare move. 

He was being watched, that much was evident. No sooner had he opened his eyes when a Lolita appeared with a glass of water and a white pill in a small, square dish enameled blood red.

 “Take this,” she ordered. “You’ll feel better.”

He took it. He’d already been drugged once so it seemed unlikely it would happen again so soon. 

And he did feel better after about twenty minutes, good enough to rise unsteadily to his feet at which point another Lolita (or perhaps the same one) manifested to guide him through a series of starkly decorated rooms and corridors into the presence of his host.

“Good, you’re up,” the Shadow Prince said regarding him snidely. He was as always surrounded by several Lolitas but they were not just ornamental. A few were working on computer consoles and all of them were armed.  “That was quite a floorshow you were putting on last night, kissing that young boy like that-- highly distasteful.”

“I didn’t realize Servitude was such a family establishment,” Arthur answered. “Maybe the prevalence of bondage gear mislead me.”

“Well, you’re just lucky I got you out of there when I did,” The Prince said languidly. “Those children who had you, they’re not as sweet as they might seem.  I suspect it was the bartender who drugged you, but that little blonde witch and her boy were poised to finish you off.” 

“Were they? I didn’t feel endangered.”

“You were clearly stoned out of your mind. I doubt you felt much of anything. Now, let’s get one thing absolutely straight:  I don’t much care for homosexuals...”

“And I don’t much care for overgrown rich boys who have to buy and own their women then dress them like Barbie Dolls.”

The Prince laughed.

“You are a prickly little hedgehog, aren’t you? What I was going to say is that I don’t much care for homosexuals, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  If it might hurt Dame Astor, I’m more than willing to help you out.  I understand you were making inquiries last night regarding a highly valued piece of the Dame’s property.”

“His name is Eames.”

“No, it’s not. Accept this first—your friend or lover or whatever he is to you, he doesn’t have a name anymore.  He’s not a person.  He’s a thing, an object she owns which we are conspiring to steal from her.  You have your motives and I have mine but we both wish to see Dame Astor deprived of this possession.”

“What’s your reason then?

“I’m sure you heard I’m a business rival of Dame Astor’s. We compete for many of the same markets. Over the last few months, Dame Astor has gained an edge.  She seems to know each move we make ahead of time.  I have reason to believe that this is because she has used the specialized skills of the piece of property you seek to gain information from one or more of the people in my organization.”

 “She’s using Eames to enter their dreams?”

“Yes. So you see, it’s in my best interest if you were to somehow take the property from her.” 

“Not to work against my own interests, but by all accounts she’s killing him. Why not just wait for him to die?” 

“Dame Astor is capable of absorbing his abilities, taking them on herself.”

“No. It doesn’t work that way.  What Eames can do-- dream walking, forging-- it’s something you learn.  It’s a discipline.  You can’t just absorb it from someone else.”

Adam Yamabe, the Shadow Prince, laughed.

“You really have no idea what Dame Astor is, do you? I suppose that’s best.  Those who understand her, how powerful she is, won’t go near her.  But you, I take it you’re willing to challenge the lady in hopes of getting your friend back?”

“I am.”

“Well, if you have even a chance at thwarting Helen in any way, I’m willing to offer my assistance. I can tell you where she lives.  I can give you her address, show you the blueprints to her apartment, and even arm you.  I believe your weapons are still at the club.”

“They are. I would greatly appreciate any assistance you could offer.”

The Shadow Prince chuckled, regarded Arthur critically.

“I can’t help but feeling that I’m delivering you up to her,” he said. “That I’m sending her a gift rather than an adversary.  What can you possibly do to Dame Helen Astor?” 

“I have a plan.”

“Do you? I don’t suppose you’d share it with me?”

“I think not.”

Arthur was provided with the promised information. He studied it with his usual meticulousness. Though the Prince had pointed out the exact rooms where Eames would likely be, Arthur made a point of committing as much as he could of the blueprints to his memory.

It was after midnight when he let himself into Dame Astor’s apartment building. A degree of skill at picking locks was something else he’d developed in his father’s hotel.  Despite his hard-working parents’ best efforts, Arthur had been criminally inclined from an early age. 

Dame Astor resided in a lavish apartment that consisted of the buildings top three stories. Arthur knew she would most likely to be on the top floor in a large room where she was known to entertain, but he did not go directly there. He made a few stops along the way-- in a bottom floor office and in Dame Astor’s deserted bedroom.  Only then did he seek out the penthouse floor and the room where he was most likely to find the Dame and Eames.

The large room was round, with a cathedral ceiling and a hardwood floor of dark red. Globes of white light seemed to hover and hang around its edges casting dim illumination. At first those within the room appeared to Arthur as a tableau of silhouettes.  A graceful arch with a man hanging upside down from its highest point, one leg bent like the number 4 or an inversion of the yoga pose the Tree.  He was surrounded by crouched figures, beaky and birdlike which were connected to him by fine threads.  The bird creatures rocked from side to side or bobbed their heads up and down but the hanged figure remained perfectly still.

He had to come quite close to see the details. The arch was a white trunked, barkless tree that rose from a circle of stones in the floor, rose and curved back to the floor, disappearing into another circle of stones so you could not tell which end was top and which was bottom, which roots and which branches. The hanging figure was Eames, naked and blindfolded as he’d appeared in Arthur’s dreams.  In his major arteries, his neck, his arms, and groin there were IV catheters attached to medical tubing.  A group of people in red robes and strange pointy hats and masks clustered around Eames, holding the lengths of tubing.  It took Arthur a moment to realize that they were using them to drink his blood, to suck if from inside him.

Completely against his will, Arthur fell to his knees retching. When he had composed himself enough to look up, it seemed as though he had moved from yards away to the direct proximity of the group.  He could feel their eyes on him, superior and without fear as if he was a curiosity, an unusual but harmless creature that had stumbled into their midst. 

One of them stepped forward. She removed her hat and mask, then her robe. 

He was surprised to see that she was lovely—a tall, slim woman with handsome features and radiant, fair skin. Her clear blue eyes sparkled with intelligence.  Only a crepe like texture to the skin under her eyes, a few sharply etched lines and the white in her pale blonde hair suggested age.  Under the robe, she wore a simple black dress that hung to the floor.  Its sleeves were long and unadorned, it’s neck scooped to display the swell of her breasts.  She reminded him of pictures he’d seen of the modern dancer Martha Graham as Clytemnestra, death both fierce and beautifully alluring.  He almost expected music to start and for the woman in black and the figures in red to move in a graceful but harrowing choreography. 

Instead, the woman spoke.

“Ah,” she said. “The hanged man’s lover makes his less than auspicious appearance.  I am Helen Astor; I am the one you seek.”

“I seek him,” Arthur said bluntly. He went to Eames’ side to survey the damage up close. It was bad.  Every surface of his skin seemed to be a map of scars and scabs, fresh and half-healed cuts.  Beneath them bruises ranging in color from vivid mauve to blue to yellow-green blossomed.  He looked as though he’d lost about 30 pounds since Arthur had seen him last.  His cheekbones and ribs cast shadows.  There was something strange about him as well.  He seemed transparent, his blood vessels and organs nearly visible, the beating of his heart something Arthur could see, could hear and feel.  Coldness seemed to radiate from inside him. 

Arthur cast a nervous glance at Dame Astor and started to pull away the tape that held one of the IV catheters in place.

The Dame did not care for that.

“Get away from there,” she scolded. “Have you no manners?  How dare you come into my house and put your hands on my things.”  Much like the Lolitas in the club, the figures in red moved around Arthur, forming a wall which cut him off from Eames. Arthur drew his gun, leveled it at her head.  “This is hardly the way to begin a civil discussion.  I’d hoped we could come to an agreement.”

“Get him down from there,” he ordered. “I won’t discuss anything with you with him hanging there like a slab of meat.”

“Don’t think that toy allows you to order me around,” Dame Astor sniffed. “I assure you bullets can’t harm me.”

“Get him down,” Arthur repeated through gritted teeth.

“Very well, I see we’re going to get nowhere until you have your way.”

She walked over to where Eames hung and lifted him up and off whatever had held him in the tree. Arthur was surprised.  Even in this depleted state Eames’ dead weight was too much for a slender woman in her sixties to so easily move. 

Seating herself, Dame Astor let Eames’ body fall across her lap like a twisted Pieta.

“Satisfied now?” She asked Arthur.  He nodded, put his gun in its holster though his hand lingered on it. 

“Why are you doing this to him?” He asked.

“It’s what I do, young man. It’s how I live.” 

“No. You could live without degrading him like that.”

“I enjoy degrading him. He deserves it.  He came to me full of arrogance, this one, a charming gigolo.  He thought he could get the best of me.  That I was a foolish old lady he could win over with his sweet words and his pretty face and his clever bedroom tricks.  He thought he could wrap me around his finger.  I’ve cured him of those delusions, taken him down to his most base components.  I’ve shown him what it is to be powerless, what it is to truly be a slave.  His body, his soul, his life, it all belongs to me to do with as I will.”

“You’re wrong,” Arthur said, never taking his eyes off her. “I saw him before he came to you.  He was afraid.  He didn’t know if what was happening was real or a nightmare.  He doesn’t deserve this.  I won’t let you do this to him anymore.”

“Do you plan to take him from me?”

“Yes.”

“I assume it’s because you want to have him for yourself?”

“No. He shouldn’t belong to me.  He shouldn’t belong to anyone.  No one should be a slave.”

“Many find fulfillment as slaves.”

“That,” he gestured at Eames’ inert body, “is not fulfillment.”

“Some people have a death wish.” She rose, letting Eames slip to the floor and came closer and closer to Arthur.  Her legs invisible under her skirts, she seemed to be gliding. 

“I know him. He wants to live.”

“You are right, he’s greedy for life, this one—takes men or women as he pleases, always making wagers and playing games. I know what he’s made of because I’ve taken him apart.  You though, I wonder what you’re made of.”  She took his hand in hers, caressing it delicately.  “Don’t be frightened, young man.  I just want to sample a taste of you.”  She raised his hand to her mouth and bit into the fleshy outside of his upturned palm, a few inches above his pinky finger.  After an initial stab of pain he went light-headed, crumbling to his knees.  She let him go with a laugh. 

“Isn’t that interesting,” she sneered. “He thinks you’re too good for him.  If only he knew.  You’re nothing, a dishonest bellboy, a sneaky thief and a little whore.  You sold yourself to an old man to learn his tricks and it broke your heart.” Arthur had staggered back to his feet and she pressed against him, strong and cold, backing him up until he was trapped between her and the wall.  “I know you live in shame, young man, in shame and horror.  I know how very much alone you are.”  Her hands, fingers long as spider legs, nails painted a dusky rose but filed to dagger points worried and toyed with the buttons on his shirt and waistcoat, working downward.  Pulling and scratching at his belt buckle, lingering over his groin, tracing the outline of his cock and balls through his pants.  He shuddered, tried to push her off him.  It did not good.  She was inhumanly strong.  “I know a woman had you once, took you against your will.  You fear everyone but women more than men.  It would be so easy to shatter you, little boy.  To rip away the armor you clad yourself in and make you powerless before desire.”

He was sweating, shaking, he couldn’t breathe. The sound of her voice, the smell of her, her very presence strove to dominate him, overpower senses he hadn’t even known he had.  He felt he was on the brink of stumbling again, on the brink of falling.  He could see in his mind’s eye, as clearly as though it was inevitable; he crumbled on the floor with her crouched over him like a black winged bird of prey.  The Dame, the English Queen tearing open his clothes and then his skin, feasting on his entrails.  He saw her throwing his gutted corpse onto Eames, the two of them nothing more than a pile of lifelessness. 

He focused on the plan he had made earlier, almost the moment he’d woken from his drugged sleep.  He saw the plan like a shining thread through the darkness.  If he was to have any chance, he needed to follow the plan. 

“Dame Astor,” he managed to say with a calm and force he did not feel, “I’m here to challenge you, as Iris did.”

“Iris,” she laughed. “Iris was like me.  You’re nothing.”

“Nonetheless, I’m issuing you a challenge. If you would please take your hands off me, we can discuss terms.” 

She stepped back, clearly amused.

“And what are your terms?” she smirked.

“We engage in single combat; I believe that’s how it works. If I walk away you give me Eames’ contract... “

“And if I debilitate you, I get you mind, body and soul to rip and rend as I see fit.” She finished.

“I was thinking I could buy you dinner.” He quipped, just nervous (heart-stoppingly terrified) enough to make dumb jokes.  Dame Astor looked at him with snarling contempt.  Humor apparently was not called for. 

“I agree to your challenge, young man,” she said haughtily. From the folds of her dark, voluminous skirt she drew a long sickle curved knife. “I trust you have your own weapons?”

“Indeed,” he said drawing the knife from his ankle.

The smart thing would have been to draw his gun, enact his place as soon as possible but some perverse impulse compelled him to take her measure. Arthur was highly skilled at hand to hand combat.  It was something Loftus had insisted he master.  His mentor had been a firm believer that too many people in their field depended upon guns.  Not needing one would always give you an edge that could be turned into an advantage.  Arthur owed a lot to Loftus. The things he had learned, he tried to assure himself, were worth whatever small price he had paid. 

He couldn’t dwell on that now however. Dame Astor had her sickle knife raised and was circling him, drawing ever closer. He struck low, kicking out to sweep her legs out from under her.  It didn’t work.  He went right through her, as though she were a ghost.  Only by quickly rolling and twisting to her feet did he evade her too solid counter-strike. 

Besides the ability to become insubstantial, Dame Astor was also able to move from place to place. She might be before him one moment, behind him the next.  He used this trick to his advantage, coming up on her then striking blindly behind himself, catching her on the arm as she materialized, reddening the tip of his blade.

“First blood, Dame,” he said. She spat and cursed at him, clearly furious.  He knew she would be completely merciless from this point on, holding nothing back.  It was time to go.  He drew his gun.

“I told you before, idiot,” she snarled. “Bullet’s won’t touch me.”

“Don’t worry, they’re not for you,” Arthur said. Then he raised the gun to his own temple and pulled the trigger.

He woke up in what appeared to be a corporate meeting room. He was reclining in a chair, an IV tube connecting him to a Pasiv device.  He was not surprised to see that Dame Astor slept to one side of him, the Shadow Prince on the other.  What did surprise him was that Eames wasn’t there.  He’d felt, sensed deep down that the Eames he had seen in the dream was in actual fact Eames, not a projection of anyone’s imagination.  He was usually dead on about telling real people from dreams, but then nothing was as usual with this particular situation. 

He got to his feet, pulling out the IV. Directly before him was one of the Shadow Princes’ Lolitas. This one wore a blue wig and was working on a computer terminal.  He was unarmed, and there was a gun in her lap but she made no move towards it.   

“My, my,” she said. “You’ve woken up early.  You must have realized it was all a dream.  However did you figure it out?”

“The devil is in the details,” Arthur said and wiggled the toes of his still wet stocking feet at her. “My shoes were back at the club.”

“I see. A grievous oversight on the part of the architect,” she said. 

“Am I correct in assuming you’re the architect?”

“You are. I am. You ought to go; they’ll be expecting me to wake them.”

“You helped me,” he said. “You went against your master to help me.  Thank you.”

Her face was fixed, without emotion.

“Why should I work against my master’s interests?”  She asked coolly.  “I can I assure you; I have found happiness in slavery.”

“I have a message for your master and his Dame. Tell them to meet me at Servitude at 11 pm tomorrow night.  Tell them to bring Eames.”

“As you wish. Good luck, little hedgehog.”

After that, he had neither need nor wish to linger. He left the room, left the building and disappeared into the city, making himself, for the rest of the night and the following day, so scarce he might have been invisible.

Part 3: Listen to the Colour of Your Dreams

Arthur arrived at Servitude early the next evening. He was careful to stay conspicuously in public eye, and to drink nothing this time.  Iris and Lise were there.     

“I didn’t expect to see you again,” Lise admitted.

“I was lucky,” he said.

“Extremely lucky,” she agreed. The two of them caught him up between them, held him on the dancefloor.  That was fine with Arthur.  So long as he was in Servitude, the public eye was the safest place for him.  Not that there wasn’t a hint of danger in the way the women pressed to him, the way their hands both held and explored him.  

It was nearly midnight before the Shadow Prince made his appearance. As usual he was accompanied by a contingency for several Lolitas in white dresses and multi-colored wigs. Their party didn’t linger in the club itself but went directly into a private room. 

Not long after Dame Astor herself appeared. She was wearing a dress identical to the one she’d worn in Arthur’s dream except it was white rather than black, flattering the delicate rose of her complexion.  Eames was with her, also dressed in white—a simple tunic and trousers of raw silk.  He was barefoot, with a blindfold around his eyes.  His hands were tied in front of him by a black ribbon.  Dame Astor led him by another black ribbon tied around his throat.  She too disappeared into the private room and Arthur pried himself away from Lise and Iris to follow her. 

The minute he entered the room, Dame Astor had her sickle curved knife in hand and began screaming at him.

“You young man, are a cheat and a coward,” she proclaimed shrilly. “I demand you face me again…”

“I didn’t deceive you anymore than you deceived me,” Arthur answered fighting hard to appear calm. “You presented a dream to me as reality.  You had your ally pose as an enemy.  Our agreement stands.  I walked away.  I get Eames.”

“You presumptuous little…”

“Calm down, Helen,” the Prince interceded. “He saw through your tricks.  Give credit where credit is due.  Let’s see if we can’t find out how much he knows and how much damage control we’re going to have to do.”

Dame Astor shrieked several creative things she’d like to do with Arthur’s internal organs, and then composed herself.

“Very well,” she snarled. “How did you know you were dreaming?  How did you know the Prince and I are working together?”

“I won’t tell you how I knew it was a dream,” Arthur said. “Let’s just say a detail was off.  As for your relationship with the prince, I suspected you and the Prince were working together when his Lolita drugged my drink.”

“You knew? Why did you drink it?”

“I wanted you to play your hand. It was only after I got into your rooms, Dame Astor, and found your safe, that I realized just how close you and the Prince are.  You’re more than just business allies, you’re mother and son.”

“Damn you.”

“You’ve been very successfully deceiving the whole Tokyo underworld into believing they’re dealing with two small dynasties when in truth they’re dealing with one large one. Clever, but if word gets out there might be trouble.  You’re a proud woman, Dame Astor.  Your family has spent generations building an empire here.  Do you really want to risk it over a slave?” 

“He’s really not worth it, mother,” the Prince said with resignation.

“No,” Helen said, “he’s not. I’ll give you back your damaged goods, little boy but don’t think either of you have seen the last of me. My reach is long and I never forgive.”

“Do you know what a “back door” is?” Arthur asked her.  “It’s something Eames told me about a long time ago.  If you’re in someone else’s dream, it’s possible to open a so called “back door” that allows you future access to that person’s dreams.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing. It doesn’t exist,” Helen said firmly.

“I didn’t think it did either but I decided to try it. What Eames does, forging, it’s simply a matter of changing the shape of a dream, willing things into other things.  Opening a “back door” is simple enough; you just dream it into being.  There’s a back door in your bedroom now, Lady Astor.  I can visit your dreams whenever I want to.  I can come and go as I wish.  You have no secrets from me.  When I leave here with Eames, you’re going to stay away from both of us.”

“I will not be threatened by the likes of you.”

“Just give him the contract, Mother,” the Prince sighed. “Let’s have it over and done with.”

“Fine.” Helen pulled out an envelope.  Inside were Eames’ identification and passports (several in different names) as well as a handwritten contract signed in brownish dried blood by both parties.  Arthur tore it in two and as the halves floated to the ground they caught fire, reduced to ashes. “He’ll find out what you are,” Helen said.  “You’ve let him believe you’re a fine thing, an aristocrat.  He’ll find out you aren’t and he’ll hate you for it.”

“That is a risk I’m willing to take,” Arthur said between clenched teeth as he untied Eames’ blindfold.

“Arthur, you’re here,” Eames said. He seemed dazed, uncertain, as if he had been aware of nothing that had happened up until the blindfold was removed.  Then he saw Dame Astor and pushed Arthur behind him, setting his body between the two of them.  “Get out of here, Arthur.  Go.”

Arthur caught his shoulder, whispered in his ear.

“It’s all right Eames, we’re both leaving together. She doesn’t have any power over you any more.  I’m going to take you away from her.”

Eames looked around, slightly wild eyed. Arthur grabbed his hand and started to pull him towards the door.  Dame Astor spit like a cat and Eames started, jumped.

“It’s okay,” Arthur assured him. “She can’t do anything else to you.  Come on.”

They made it through the door. When it closed, Eames looked at him with raw terror in his eyes, not knowing what to do next. Arthur indicated the exit sign and started to lead him in that direction.  As they went, Eames began to walk faster and faster until they were running out the door, down the street.

Arthur hired a cab to take them to the airport. There was a high end import sneaker store there and he was able to buy them shoes; ridiculously blinged out sneakers but better than nothing.  Once they boarded the plane, whatever adrenaline rush had been animating Eames wore off.  He turned dead white and started shaking so hard his teeth rattled. 

For the better part of five hours, Eames sat huddled in his seat rocking back and forth muttering or maybe chanting to himself in Japanese. Arthur wrapped a blanket around him and tried to get him to eat something or at least have some water.  Eames refused wordlessly, with simple primitive gestures leaving Arthur to wonder if his time with Dame Astor had severed his connection to reality.  Was his mind somewhere else entirely? Would he ever make it back?   He wondered too if Helen hadn’t given Eames some sort of drug before cutting him loose.  There was no way to tell.  Finally Eames fell into an uneasy and then a deep sleep.  He was out for the better part of twelve hours and woke coherent but largely silent, distant.  Arthur was too exhausted to try to draw him out. 

When they reached LAX they changed passports then grabbed a flight to San Francisco. From there Arthur rented a car and took Highway 101 North out of the city.  His destination was Bodega Bay.  Cobb owned a house there that had been in his family for several generations.  Remotely located on thirty some acres, he’d converted it into a sort of an emergency safe house.  It was off the grid with solar generators, always stocked with supplies and weapons. 

When they reached the house Eames disappeared wordlessly into the shower and Arthur collapsed. He must have fallen asleep because the next thing he knew it was dark.  He checked his watch and saw over an hour had passed.  Eames was still in the shower. 

Arthur picked the lock on the bathroom door, turned off the now ice cold water and pulled Eames out. His naked body looked exactly as it had in Arthur’s dreams, starved, battered, cut, and bruised; also blueish from the cold, like a living corpse.  Arthur dried him off as best he could, trying to impart some warmth to him then led him into the bedroom.

“Get into bed, you’re freezing,” he said. Eames obligingly sat down on the edge of the bed then pulled Arthur to him, dragging him down onto the bed he rolled on top of him, pinning him, hands clasping his wrists.  Eames’ icy lips, not quite kissing, worked against Arthur’s whispering frantically.

“Let me fuck you, please. The things she did to me…  I can’t… I need to fuck you; I need to be in control.  Please, please Arthur.  Please, darling…”

He hadn’t expected this. He could scarcely imagine the violations Helen must have visited on Eames during their time together. If it was him, sex would have been the very last thing he would want but he couldn’t deny the raw need in Eames’ voice. 

“Do it,” he said. “Do what you have to.”

Based on Eames’ desperation, Arthur expected to be taken immediately and with violence as soon as he granted permission but it wasn’t like that at all. Eames let go of his wrists, kissed him deeply and at such a length that warmth began to return to his lips and then to his body.  He undressed Arthur carefully, piece by piece, touching him everywhere in such a way that his own body seemed to grow inflamed. He found himself moaning and thrashing wantonly beneath Eames’ hands, his mouth, the weight of him, no longer capable of restraint.  He wanted more than anything to say “stop, don’t, no more” but he wanted Eames to have this.

Arthur was shaking, nearly hyperventilating as Eames slathered lubricant around his asshole. He clenched tight and the first time Eames tried to enter him he couldn’t.  Undeterred, Eames tried another tack, took Arthur’s sex in his mouth, sucking him, taking him to the brink of orgasm, keeping him there till he was so enraptured, so completely helpless he could offer no resistance when Eames’ fingers opened him up. Drawing up to his knees, Eames lifted Arthur’s legs onto his shoulders, pressing the tip of his cock to Arthur’s anus carefully applying pressure when Arthur relaxed, easing up when he tightened, working his way inch by inch inside till his pelvis was flush to Arthur’s ass, his cock sunk to the hilt.  Arthur groaned wordlessly, panic and pleasure intertwined.  Eames began to move, thrusting deep inside him, deeper and deeper till there seemed to be no limits, no boundaries between them.  His hands were on Arthur’s sex, stroking him even as he filled him.  It was unbearable and beyond unbearable. 

Bucking against Eames, forcing him in deeper Arthur came. Eames pulled out, slapping his erection against Arthur’s stomach, slick where he had ejaculated, beating off, bringing himself to orgasm.  When he was finished, Arthur turned away embarrassed, even ashamed, wiping himself with the sheet, curling in onto himself.  Eames didn’t allow it. He drew Arthur to his chest, held him there tightly, burying his face in his hair. 

“Thank you,” he said. And then, “I’m sorry.  That was hard for you, letting go like that.  It was selfish of me to ask it, after all you’ve gone through, after all you’ve done for me.  You’re so extremely competent in so many ways I sometimes forget how fragile you really are.”  Arthur, who did not care to be called fragile, gave him a look of death.  “Oh, don’t glare at me like that.  You feel a great deal more than you let on, I’ve always known that.  Back when I left, when I put you off, I hurt you deeply didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“I’d thought I was sparing you pain, that you’d be better off without me and the insanity I tend to bring with me. Then I dragged you into it anyway.”

“You didn’t drag me; I came of my own free will.”

“I signed Dame Astor’s contact of my free will. If I dare say, the freedom of free will becomes very ambiguous when love is involved.”

 “Is that why you became Helen’s slave?  For someone you loved?  That woman with a price on her head, is she your lover?” 

“Her name is Magda. We were lovers, once.  We were husband and wife for three year.  It ended a long time ago, but I’ll always love her.  We had a child together, a daughter, Clarissa.  Neither of us are allowed to see her.  She’s eight right now, she lives with Magda’s mum and dad in Newport.  Magda and I had a grand sturm und drang romance.  We thought we were the English Bonnie and Clyde.  Every day was a bad hip-hop song, robbery, getaway cars, motorbikes, guns blaring, hustlers, hookers and enormous quantities of cocaine.  We were the worst parents imaginable.  

“When we lost Clarissa, it was a wakeup call for me. I tried to get off the drugs, Magda refused to.  I couldn’t be with her and not be an unrepentant addict so we parted ways.  I didn’t exactly go straight; I got into forgery and dream work.  She got deeper and deeper into drugs, became a dealer and finally a smuggler.  Somewhere along the line she ran afoul of Dame Astor.  With all that’s been between us, I couldn’t let her die so I contracted with Helen in exchange for her dropping the hit. 

“I didn’t know, thank goodness. If I had known then, really known what she was and what she would do to me, I don’t think I would have done it.”

“She’s not as powerful as you think,” Arthur told him. “What she did to you, it was mindfuckery to the nth degree, it was rape, and it was torture, but it wasn’t witchcraft.  She was using drugs on you, she was going into your dreams to convince you she had special powers.”  

“So even after everything you still refuse to believe how much more there is to the world? You do at least admit that the back door was possible?  I hope.”

“The back door worked. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did.”

“Completely devoid of creativity, that’s what you are. You’re clever and brave and absolutely adorable to be completely devoid of creativity.”

“Because I don’t want to believe in vampirism and witchcraft? Aren’t there are enough horrible things in the world already?  People have enough ways of hating and destroying and hurting each other without dragging magic into it.” 

“That’s only half of it, horrible things, hurting and destroying. There’s another side to the coin.  There are good things too, possibilities.  You can imagine change for the better.  You for instance, you all but had an anxiety attack in coitus.  You deserve better than that.  You deserve to be comfortable with yourself.”

“I’m… not good… with sex.” Arthur muttered, embarrassed.

“And I’m selfish. I’m a criminal.  I’ve always been a criminal.  I was never a father to my child.  I’ve always felt I could have all I wanted; my boys, my girls, and my freedom.  In many ways the life I’ve lead brought me to Dame Astor.  I thought she was something else I could control, have my way with.  I believed I was signing up for 2 years with a sugar mama.  I was very wrong.  After what she did to me, the only way I can go on is to imagine a better future, being a better person, actually thinking and caring about someone else; Clarissa, finally and you also, if you’ll let me.”

“I….” It was what Arthur wanted but had never believed possible, never dared to admit.  Eames kissed him carefully, like he might run.  He might run. 

“I know you’re afraid,” he said. “But you’re brave.   Will you let me care for you?  Will you let me show you love?” 

“I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> A note on the music:   
> Eames ringtone is “Tomorrow Never Knows” by the Beatles. It is credited to Lennon/McCartney though it is believed that John Lennon was the primary writer.   
> The first song sung at the club with the refrain “Take good care of yourself, you belong to me” is “Button Up Your Overcoat” written by Ray Henderson with lyrics by B.G. DeSylva and Lew Brown first recorded by Ruth Etting in 1928. It has also been sung by Bing Crosby, Nancy Sinatra, Vaughan, Connie Francis and Johnny Mercer among others.   
> The second song sung at the club is “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails from their 1994 album Downward Spiral . The correct lyrics are:  
>  I wanna fuck you like an animal  
>  I wanna feel you from the inside  
>  I wanna fuck you like an animal  
>  My whole existence is flawed  
>  You get me closer to God.


End file.
